How to Wreck My Bully's Heart novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Lab Partners

Seated as lab partners, Maisy is calm and teasing while Drake unravels; that night she sings for him knowing, and Teagan posts her mother's care-home badge.

On Tuesday the substitute in chemistry read names off a seating chart.

"Rafferty, Hargrove. Bench six."

The room made a sound.

Drake stood at the back, still in his coat. His eyes found mine across thirty heads.

He looked terrible.

There was a shadow under each eye and a nick on his jaw from shaving in a hurry.

I picked up my notebook and walked to bench six.

I sat on the left stool and put my pencil in the groove.

After a long second, he came.

He set his bag on the floor. He sat on the right stool, as far from me as the bench allowed.

"This isn't happening," he said, low.

"The chart says it is."

"I'll ask to switch."

"Go ahead." I clicked my pencil. "Tell him why."

His mouth closed.

The substitute handed out beakers. Drake stared at his.

"Good morning, partner," I said.

"Don't."

"Don't what? Be friendly?" I tilted my head. "You look like you swallowed a thermometer."

Somebody behind us snorted.

Drake turned a slow shade of red.

"Measure the sodium chloride," the substitute called.

I weighed the salt. Drake held the beaker. Our fingers touched once on the glass, and he drew his hand back.

I did not draw mine back.

"You're shaking," I said softly.

"I'm fine."

"Is it me?"

"It's nothing."

"Funny." I poured. "I get nervous too. When I can't tell what someone really wants from me."

The beaker rattled in his hand.

I smiled at the salt.

For forty minutes I teased him, so lightly the substitute never noticed.

I corrected his math and borrowed his pen without asking.

When he reached for the burner I said, "Careful, Hargrove, you could burn yourself."

His ears went red.

By the end of the hour, he hadn't said one cruel thing.

He had forgotten to.

When the bell rang, he caught my wrist.

"Rafferty."

"Yes?"

He looked at his own hand. He let go.

"Nothing," he said.

Across the room, Teagan Whitmer was watching us from the doorway with her arms folded and her smile gone.

She had known Drake since they were four. She knew what his face did when he lied.

I gave her a little wave.

That night was Sunday-night stream, only it was Tuesday, because I had moved it. I wanted him listening.

I sat on my bed with the lamp off, a paper mask on my face, a borrowed microphone in front of me.

Moth had a little over three hundred people most nights. Four hundred tonight, because I had posted that morning that I'd sing something new.

I looked at the chat.

Nightcrawler: Hey. I'm here.

I breathed in.

"This one's for someone who has been kind to me," I told the screen. "Someone who doesn't know how much I knew."

The chat filled with hearts.

I sang the lighthouse song I had written in June.

I sang it low, close to the mic, and let my voice crack on the high note.

When I finished, Nightcrawler wrote one line.

Nightcrawler: I've never heard anything so honest. I wish I could tell you who I am.

I stared at the screen.

"Tell me," I said, out loud, to four hundred strangers and one boy across town.

"If you could say it, what would you say?"

The dots appeared. They vanished. They appeared again.

Nightcrawler: That I'm sorry. About a lot of things.

I let the silence sit.

Then I said, softly, "Me too."

I logged off and took the mask off.

I sat in the dark with my heart hammering.

It was a game. I had to keep telling myself it was a game.

My phone lit up again.

It was Cassie, in all capital letters.

"CHECK THE SCHOOL STORY FEED. NOW."

I opened it.

Teagan had posted at nine fifty-one.

It was a photo of my mother in her pale blue scrubs, her name badge clear, in the lobby of Maple Court.

The caption read, "Scholarship Girl's mom wipes the Hargrove grandpa's butt for minimum wage. Thanks for the free education, Maisy xx"

Under it, two hundred and forty likes.

I read it four times.

My mother had worked nights at that care home for eleven years. She had never once told me she was tired.

Then I saw the second line, in small type under the caption.

"Tagged: Drake Hargrove."

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